11th Blog Post

11th Blog Post

Song chosen: Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana


This is such an iconic song, I remember the first time I listened to it was in the 7th grade, back when I was listening predominately to One Direction. I obviously couldn't appreciate the absolute brilliance of this very popular single at the time. This song arises feelings of that pubescent teen angst, and I cannot see why this wasn't a popular song at the time of its release in 1991. According to some light research, this song did not chart or do well after its release. 

This song is somewhat soft during the verses, and then gets harder during the chorus. Kurt Cobain said he liked the progression of the Pixie's "soft and quiet and then loud and hard" style. It's so cool to me that some of the most famous songs in history were inspired by some songs that the average population wouldn't even know. Nirvana finishes off this song with the loud and hard, with Cobain repeating "A denial" over and over again, finally finishing off with the guitars and voice slowly fading out as a great decrescendo which feels like the perfect ending to the song.

The instruments in the background fit the passion of the voice so well, a very heavy electrical guitar seems to be the leading instrument, but we get some really nice drums that become more obvious in the background during the verses. 

Upon reading the lyrics, it seems like a bunch of rhyming and almost nonsense. I pick up on some talk of drugs and even Cobain's very obvious mental illnesses (that he later died from). He later admits, years later in 1994, that he was just "trying to write the ultimate pop song." So I would speculate that the nonsense lyrics are just to fit into this song that he really cared more about musically rather than lyrically.

Overall such a masterpiece and honestly one of the best grunge-y rock songs to ever exist. It's one of those songs you have to listen to at least once (if not more) in your life.


Comments

  1. Kourtney SmallDecember 6, 2021 at 12:00 PM

    Your blog post on this was so good! I really liked reading it! I also liked the part where you touched on the ending of the song, It is kind of an interesting ending, one time my 12th grade English teacher made us listen to the whole ending of the song just so we could listen to the ending of the song, he told us he want the ending of our essays to be like it " perfect" like you said in your blog. lol but I just find the end interesting. Nice job!

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